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I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered.

Rufus Wainwright

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Rufus Wainwright
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: July 22
Composer
Musician
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Rhinebeck (village)
New York
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright
Age
Young
Think
Entranced
Thinking
Tempered
Identified
Fairly
Pretty
Everybody

More quotes by Rufus Wainwright

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I don't know if it will be my big comeback, but I think it is a statement - that I am a self-sustaining, vibrant, long-term artist, and I'm not going away! And if you don't give me credit, then the musical gods will!
Rufus Wainwright
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I'm very much a romantic. I'm highly attuned to an older sensibility, which I believe is alive and well. We're not that far ahead of the Romantic Age in society.
Rufus Wainwright
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My greatest experiences in the theatre and the most religious experiences in my life - of which going to the opera is one for me - have been with the Romantic composers' repertoire: it's Wagner, it's Strauss, Verdi, Puccini. That era gets me every time.
Rufus Wainwright
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The artist who gave me the most inspiration and direction, especially as a singer - and I absolutely consider myself a singer, 100 percent - is Nina Simone. She's my ultimate pianist-singer-type person.
Rufus Wainwright
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Arguably, the relationship between Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland is one of the great mother-daughter sagas of all time. Certainly, for certain people, and a lot of them, Liza is the bigger star. Liza is the more kind of viable legend, shall we say. Then there's the other camp, where Judy is the one.
Rufus Wainwright
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When I'm in the classical world, I really treat it as exactly classical and I don't try and spruce it up or jazz it up or make it easier for the masses.
Rufus Wainwright
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I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean, you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier, people die for them, people kill for them.
Rufus Wainwright
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One of the main destructive forces within our family has been these runaway egos. I think if you look at any show business family, that struggle exists.
Rufus Wainwright
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I'll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I've done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.
Rufus Wainwright
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Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life?
Rufus Wainwright
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I am regarded as a usurper, as an imposter and dilettante, because I do technically come from the wrong side of the tracks in musical terms.
Rufus Wainwright
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I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider. For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust. I've been hanging out a bit with Lou Reed, and he's the complete opposite. He's into technology and is kind of like a toddler, compared to me, who's like an old 19th-century widow or something.
Rufus Wainwright
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My dad and I have always been somewhat competitive.
Rufus Wainwright
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But I want to deepen as an artist, and working with Shakespeare definitely points in that direction.
Rufus Wainwright
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I think my mother, more than anyone, knew the importance of inspiration. If it was occurring, you had to use it.
Rufus Wainwright
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I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.
Rufus Wainwright
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The mind has so many pictures Why can't I sleep with my eyes open? The mind has so many memories Can you remember what it looks like when I cry? I'm trying, trying to tell you All that I can in a sweet and velvet tongue But no words ever could sell you Sell you on me after all that I have done.
Rufus Wainwright
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Certainly in terms of my life - anybody's life - you go through death, childbirth and marriage, glory and defeat, and so on.
Rufus Wainwright
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In retrospect, I'm really shocked at how far I put my heart out there on the line with 'Prima Donna'. I seem to have this knack for being able to accomplish that.
Rufus Wainwright
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I bemoan the fact that all my famous friends have places in St. Bart's and I have to go to Montauk.
Rufus Wainwright